


Daily Mechanics

by sixpences



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - Manga, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-19
Updated: 2010-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot to get used to in a new town, but it's good to have a friend. Written for fma_ladyfest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daily Mechanics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dictator_duck](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dictator_duck).



Once, it had probably been quite a nice watch. Winry taps her screwdriver against the side of the case and squints at the mechanism through Mr Garfiel's magnifying goggles, which are just a bit too large to sit comfortably on her head. The workbench light casts long shadows around the whole of the rest of the room and makes Paninya's relatively-easy-to-ignore hovering much more irritating, with her shadow thrown huge and restless across the whole ceiling.

"So can you fix it?"

Winry turns and does her best imitation of Granny's unimpressed look over the tops of the goggles. "You realise I'm an automail mechanic? There's a watchmaker just down the street, his shop's right next to that bakery where Mr Garfiel buys the bread."

"Well, yes, but I, uh," Paninya shoves her hands deep into her pockets, shrugging her shoulders and leaning back on her heels. She's been twitchy ever since she appeared in the shop with the thing, not that she isn't twitchy most of the time anyway. "I, um, might have stolen his cat once. Look, I gave it back!" she adds at Winry's aghast expression, "it was for a bet, cats don't sell for that much anyway."

"And you definitely didn't steal this watch."

"Would _you_ steal it in that state?"

She has a point. Winry glances at it again over her shoulder. The casing is a mess and the mechanism's broken but from what she can see most of the parts are still perfectly sound, so there's no reason it couldn't be made to work again. She's only ever really taken apart one watch before, when Daddy's finally stopped for good and he let her have it to play with. Paninya is looking at the floor, scuffing one foot back and forth.

"If you can't fix it, I don't really care or anything, it's probably not worth a lot. I just…" There's a little 'twang' from the vicinity of her knee and she frowns, flexing her leg more slowly. Winry's had a good look at them now and she can visualise Dominic's fine, delicate parts moving slowly over one another, the spark of bioelectrical currents along the narrow wires. She can almost think about it now without thinking about Ed's leg, about how much better she can still make it. Almost. Paninya shakes her leg slightly and seems satisfied, and when she looks up they finally make eye contact.

"I just thought you'd get a kick out of it, okay? You love all this sort of stuff." She gestures around the workshop, the carefully labelled boxes of gears and wiring and different lengths of girder stacked up on shelves and the tools hanging from every wall. "Got to at least make a stab at this turning over a new leaf thing."

"Thank you," Winry says, softening slightly. It _would_ be interesting to work with such delicate mechanisms. Probably very useful for working on fine motor control for fingers, when she thinks about it. Paninya shrugs again and pulls out her usual jaunty smile.

"Remember you owe me a favour then!" and before Winry can think of a comeback she's scooted away up the stairs.

 

"…And you want to avoid the Socket & Gear after about nine in the evening, it can get a bit hairy in there."

"There are fights?"

"Well yeah, but it also seems to attract a lot of bearded guys for some reason. I don't ask." Paninya yanks her hand again, still half-dragging Winry along behind her. Two pigeons scatter from the pavement up ahead. It's almost midday and they must have already been through half of the town; Rush Valley has a lot more to see than Riesembul could ever hope for, but it seems her guide is intent on cramming _all of it_ into a single day. "And look, there's the Button cake shop; if you go just before they close you can get all kinds of stuff really cheaply or even for free."

It's been a couple of weeks and Winry's starting to settle into the pace of life at the shop, but with more customers daily than they'd likely see in a week at Granny's shop she's not had a lot of time to explore, and she's missing a lot of her home comforts. Granny sent her a big parcel with some of her things- including a pair of goggles that actually fit- and a new Riesembul wool blanket and a big tin of biscuits, but you can't send everything through the post and she's not likely to get time to go home for a while yet. She glances at the shops they pass, expensive clothes and fascinating-looking gadgets, but she could do with somewhere a little more down to earth. She tugs slightly at Paninya's hand.

"Do you know anywhere I could get a good set of overalls?" she asks a little breathlessly.

Paninya stops short, looking thoughtful, and Winry almost careers into the back of her. She braces one hand against the other girl's back and tugs the other free in order to rearrange her skirt, which has managed to twist itself around from all the running. Paninya is stroking her chin and posing in a really rather obvious way.

"There's a lot of standard mechanics' supply shops on Berwick Street? It's just around the corner."

Winry raises an eyebrow and gestures loosely at herself. "You might not have noticed, but I'm not really built like most automail mechanics."

Paninya grins. "You really don't know this town, Rockbell."

'Wrench Wenches' is one of the most ridiculous names for a shop that Winry has ever heard, but the window display has a 32-piece hand-calibrated screwdriver set so distracting that Paninya eventually has to physically drag her inside. The woman behind the counter has a bandanna tied over her long, grey-speckled brown hair and a monocle fixed in one eye. As the door chimes closed she gives them a quick, assessing glance over a copy of South City Today.

"Don't think I haven't got an eye on you, Paninya," she says as she turns back to the paper.

"Today I am a paying customer, Mrs Fraser," Paninya says, directing a charming grin into the ether. "This is my friend Winry Rockbell. She's an automail mechanic."

That earns them a second, less cursory glance. "Are you now?" Mrs Fraser asks, her gaze settling keenly on Winry. She has a thick Northern accent and a round face that's probably very nice when it's wearing a less severe expression. "Unusual sort of trade for a lass your age."

"It runs in the family," Winry says. There's an entire _wall_ lined with different kinds of work clothes and she's trying very hard not to stare. She is going to _have_ to get Granny to come for a visit.

"Often the case," is all the shopkeeper observes, and she lifts one hand from the paper to gesture around the shop. "Enjoy yourself then. I've still got an eye on you, little metalfoot girl," and her head ducks down to her reading again. Winry runs a hand along a rack of overalls in various delicate shades of blue and Paninya elbows her companionably in the side.

"Now it's _two_ favours."

 

"Of course I can't do as much with it as I used to, but rather this than nothing." Mrs Reimer smiles broadly at Winry, settling her right hand across her stomach. The left is laid out on the workbench, two of the palm plates off and the delicate inner wiring exposed, a pale imitation of the network of nerves and blood vessels it's replacing.

"You ought to have better dexterity than this," Winry says with a frown, carefully teasing the wires apart with rubber-tipped tweezers. Working on automail when it's still attached saves the customer a lot of time, but you have to concentrate much harder. Mrs Reimer's hand is not as shoddy a piece of workmanship as some she's seen but it's… sloppy, for want of a better word. Sometimes you have to wonder how somebody can make automail for a living and yet apparently never have taken the time to look at how people actually _use_ their limbs. She touches the joint gears carefully, her mind drifting to the still-disassembled watch in the cellar workshop, the tiny, beautiful mechanism locked inside.

"Any improvements you can make would be wonderful."

It's on the tip of Winry's tongue to say it would be better to rebuild the whole thing from scratch when she sees Mr Garfiel hovering at the edge of her vision. He's still wearing his apron from the forge- in-house parts are part of 'the Garfiel experience', as he insists on calling it, and keep the overheads down to boot- but he leans over to look at her work with obvious interest.

"Realigning the knuckle joints today, I take it?"

She nods. "But honestly I think the metacarpus wiring could do with a full redesign."

"I see what you mean. Pardon me, madam," he says, and pushes slightly on a lever that flattens out the whole hand; Mrs Reimer winces slightly but doesn't voice any protest. "Yes, this could certainly be simplified and there's a lot of scope for functional improvements too…"

The customer coughs slightly and they both look up, a sheepish blush rising in Winry's cheeks.

"I know you mean well but I, um, have something of a limited budget at the moment." Mrs Reimer shifts her hand on her stomach slightly and catches Winry's eye. She's not really showing yet but the gesture is enough. Mr Garfiel goes quiet and Winry hopes it isn't down to her to apologise for presuming until he claps her soundly on the shoulder.

"Well an apprentice needs her practice, and I'm sure Winry wouldn't mind doing the work for a reduced fee," he says, as if she charged her own fee at all and wasn't just taking on his simpler jobs.

"Oh I couldn't possibly-"

Mr Garfiel crouches down to look Mrs Reimer in the eye and shakes his head, grasping the side of the chair dramatically. "My dear, I have built my reputation on _service_. We'll have a new design worked out for you within the week."

The week, unfortunately, only has three days left in it, and it's past midnight when Paninya comes slouching down the stairs to the workshop carrying two mugs of tea. Winry rakes a hand through her hair and raises a cranky eyebrow.

"Did you break in through a window?"

"Mr Garfiel is up listening to those late-night radio dramas again," she says by way of explanation, and slides one mug across the workbench. Winry instantly feels much more kindly towards her. "Heard you were redesigning some woman's hand."

"Whoever built it didn't do a very thorough job, she hasn't got the kind of dexterity that's possible even with parts that cheap." Winry waves her hand towards the diagrammatical drawings she'd made that afternoon, encircled with notes in both her own and Mr Garfiel's handwriting, and the rough blueprints in front of her for the new wiring system. She's modelling it on Ed's, though with more of an eye to the kind of movement Mrs Reimer needs for her work in the restaurant rather than Ed's requirements for extensive writing and, apparently, punching people.

"Are you even getting paid for this?"

"Yes! Well, sort of. I'm not paid by commission anyway." Winry yawns and reaches for her tea. "Like Mr Garfiel said, I'm supposed to be developing my skills, and this is an interesting project."

Paninya chuckles. "Great big softies, the pair of you. Almost as bad as Dominic."

Winry gives her a sideways glance and she's far too tired now to try and moderate her tone. "It's important to have something that matters to you in your life. Better than just living for yourself."

"Harsh, Winry," Paninya says lightly, but she hides her face in her mug for longer than it ought to take to drink a mouthful of tea. Winry sighs and turns around slightly on her stool

"Look, I didn't mean-"

"Yeah you did," Paninya says, and glances up the tool-covered wall to the bare, whitewashed ceiling, biting her lip. "I suppose you've got a point. I just need to think of where to start." Her free hand wanders along the edge of the workbench before picking up the half-disassembled watch and giving it a little shake. She's rewarded with a bold, solitary tick.

 

It is absolutely boiling hot outside and near to unbearable even if she wasn't having to concentrate. Winry has her overalls rolled down to her waist and her hair pulled right back, trying to pull the chain of Josef Beren's bicycle out of the mess that's been made of the gears. He and Paninya are sat around watching her do so in what might well be the least helpful way that anyone has ever done anything.

"Perhaps I could mop your brow?"

"Oh shut up," Winry says, but there's not a lot of heat in it. Paninya sits back on her heels, the water in the cleaning bowl sloshing as she pushes it to one side. Winry squints at the chain, her hands sticky with oil.

"Is it really really broken Miss Winry?" Josef asks, looking over unhappily from the other side of the frame. Poor kid has only had the bicycle for about two weeks, and he hasn't said anything but nothing gets damaged like this by itself.

"I think it's going to be okay," she says, "but you could have taken it back to the shop and had it fixed properly."

"Well you made Dad's leg all better when it was broken," he says, looking bashful, "and Uncle Monty works at the bicycle shop and I don't want Mum and Dad to find out…"

"You don't want them to find out that some arsehole broke your birthday present?" Paninya cuts in. It's probably a side-effect of spending too much time with Ed that it takes Winry a moment to register the not exactly child-friendly language. "Who was it?"

Josef squirms uncomfortably. "They said if I told on them th-they'd hurt me next time instead of just the bicycle."

"They're all cowards, kiddo," she says, shuffling round to pat him on the shoulder. "But if you told us, it wouldn't be the same as telling a grown-up, would it?" She looks herself over. "I'm definitely not a grown up."

Winry finally manages to extract the chain from the toothy gears and gives Paninya a careful look over the prone bicycle frame. Josef glances between them and then clambers up to his knees to whisper something in Paninya's ear. Winry isn't sure if that officially makes her the adult present, or if he's just being shy again.

" _Really?_ " Paninya responds with interest, and rubs a hand over her left knee, apparently unconsciously. Winry's not entirely sure that a 1.5 inch carbine is the appropriate solution to childhood bullying, though she _would_ like to see it in action again…

"What are you going to do?" Josef asks in a slightly louder whisper, looking at Paninya with wide eyes. She winks at him.

"I have _plenty_ of experience with irritating boys," she says with a grin, and grabs him by the hand as she stands up. "You okay, Winry? We won't be long."

"You won't use the carbine, will you?"

Paninya rolls her eyes. "Not without taking you along, I promise. Geek."

Winry never gets the full details of what happened, but for the next few days several of the older boys who like to loiter around the High Street are looking distinctly the worse for wear, and Josef cycles by the shop several times just to wave at her as he goes past. Paninya looks distinctly pleased with herself too, even doing a few odd jobs for Mr Garfiel without having to be asked.

"Someone's cheerful," he comments as she brings him a mug of coffee on the shop floor.

"I've been finding my place in the world, Mr Garfiel," she says with a smile. The front of her right trouser leg has been ineptly stitched back together again.

"If your place is making me drinks then I'm certainly not complaining," he says, "though maybe a G&T next time?"

"Don't push your luck. I might make off with your cocktail shaker." She hands Winry a glass of water and cranes her head around to look out from the front of the shop. "Seems like someone's happy with his bicycle again."

"You're probably just going to have to keep threatening those boys, you know," Winry says, "or… whatever it was that you did."

"Probably," Paninya shrugs, but she reaches down to pat one thigh. "But you've gotta make use of what you've got."

 

Winry is hunting through the drawers in the back cupboard for a 4x1/2 screw when she first hears the shouting outside, and it's only after it's been going on for several minutes that she sticks her head out of the shop door into a crowd of people.

"What on earth is going on?"

"It's the watchmaker's cat," Steffan from the butcher's shop supplies. He's still in his apron and there's plenty of other people who seem to have left their work to come and gawp. "Got himself stuck up on your roof."

Winry steps out into the street, pulling her gloves off. Mr Garfiel has gone out of town for the day and she's minding the shop, but it's not as if any customers are going to be able to make it in through the ruckus. The watchmaker, Mr Paley, is standing right in the middle of the crowd, looking up at the roof and wringing his hands.

"Come on Charlie," he calls, "come down from there sweetpea, it's okay."

The cat is a small grey blob on the most awkward part of the roof, just above the shop sign, occasionally letting out an anguished miaow. "Come on cat!" someone yells from behind Winry. "Has anyone got a ladder?" she hears another mutter.

"No need for ladders here!" Paninya almost literally _bounces_ through the crowd, waving to Winry as she passes, and stops right in front of Mr Paley, settling her hands in her pockets. He gives her a withering look.

"I would really appreciate it if you would get out of here," he says tightly, and tries to step around her, moving closer to the shop. Paninya shakes her head and stays in his way.

"No, I can really help," she says, and after searching his face again she takes a little step backwards. "Just watch."

It's only after she's passed that Winry can see what Paninya sees in surfaces; the tiny handholds, the little ledges, angles just right for jumping. A bare wall is its own canvas of opportunity. The little hardware shop next door has a lower roof so she gets up onto that first, awning to windowsill to gutter, lighter and faster than muscle and bone would ever allow. She makes the jump over the alleyway to the shop roof at a run, landing on her feet and only swaying slightly. From over their heads she takes a moment to wave at the crowd.

"Show off!" someone yells.

"Come up here and say that!" Paninya answers with a grin, and then crouches down, assessing. She's only a few feet away from the cat now but the tiles slope at a strange angle and the shop sign looks as if it would get in the way of anyone trying to move around up there. "Heeeere, little kitty," she calls, but Charlie gives her a look only fractionally less withering than his owner's. Mr Paley has gone quite white, his mouth in a thin line. Even so close it's not at all clear how Paninya can get down to the cat.

The solution clicks into place in Winry's mind like the meshing of gears, and she cups her hands around her mouth. "Reach down from further along the roof, Paninya!"

Paninya casts about, making a face. "What am I supposed to hang onto?"

"Hook your calf blade into the gutter!"

The look of sheer, delighted realisation on her face only makes Winry smile wider. "You, my dear," Paninya shouts back, "are a _genius!_ "

It is not, in the end, the most graceful thing that Winry has ever seen, but it works well enough. Hanging upside down over the gable Paninya manages to grab the cat, and she throws him unceremoniously down into Winry's arms. Thankfully his claws are not quite sharp enough to penetrate the thick fabric of Winry's overalls but she's still glad enough to hand the hissing little ball back to his owner, and Mr Paley cradles the cat to his chest, muffling its yowls of protest.

"Thank you, thank you so much," he says warmly to Winry, and once Paninya has extricated herself and made her way back down to the pavement he inhales hard and nods to her as well. "It seems I owe you an apology."

"Oh that's alright," Paninya says with a smile, reaching out to scratch Charlie behind one ear; the cat's initial glare slowly diminishes. "I did try to steal him that time; I wouldn't trust me either."

"Still, I- I'm sorry," Mr Paley says as the rest of the crowd draw in around them, apparently all needing to make a fuss of the rescued cat. Steffan taps Paninya on the shoulder as he draws up next to them.

"Hey, little missy. Don't know if you'd be interested, but we've had a leak in the roof of the smokehouse for a few months now and my boss is starting to worry about when the weather gets bad."

"I've never fixed a roof before," Paninya says, but she looks suddenly interested. Steffan chuckles.

"Well I've never met anybody who'd do better on rooftops. You're a natural, might as well be a squirrel or something."

Paninya laughs. Winry grabs her hand and squeezes it and they look at one another, and they've only known each other a little while but she's never seen Paninya look so hopeful.

"Got to get the Rockbell verdict on this one."

Winry smiles. "I think you should give it a try."


End file.
